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Traveling sports apparel store wins first place at E3 Expo

Bridgit Brown
May 03, 2011

From left: Executive-in-Residence Karl Baehr and Derrick Cheung '12

Think “sports apparel store meets ice cream truck” to get an idea of what Derrick Cheung ’12 and business partner Howard Travis submitted to the business plan competition at the E3 Expo on April 23. Among the 17 new ventures competing for the top slot, Cheung and Travis’s Green Street Vault, a “rolling retail” business, won the first place prize of $5,000 plus $2,000 in legal services from New Leaf Legal, the legal advisor to E3.

The E3 Expo is the culminating event of the Entrepreneurial Studies Program at Emerson, a yearlong study of entrepreneurship leading to a minor in Entrepreneurial Studies. What started with 17 students in 2005 has grown to nearly 200 students enrolled in business education at the College today, said Executive-in-Residence Karl Baehr. Baehr is credited with designing the Business and Entrepreneurial Studies programs at Emerson.

“Nearly 40 percent of all the students who come through the program launch their businesses,” said Baehr. “Many of them have flourishing businesses, some up to five years after graduation now.”

The second-place prize of $3,000 plus legal services went to Cassandra Baptista ’11 for In My Day, a business that offers personal historian services such as family genealogical studies. NEKA Communications, a runner-focused PR & marketing agency, and Julia Kurz’s ‘11 Pole Star Dance Studio, which combines pole-dancing with fitness techniques, won the third place prize of $2,000 plus legal services.

This year’s E3 Expo judges were Martin Lowenthal of the Bulfinch Group and Boston Harbor Angels; Leslie Medalie, president of Leary Public Relations and Profits for Nonprofits; and Jessica Manganello, founding partner of New Leaf Legal.

In her keynote address, Laura Trust, president of Finagle a Bagel, spoke honestly to the students about the business of entrepreneurship. “It’s often not glamorous being an entrepreneur,” she said. “It’s not always easy taking care of business, particularly when business can be very difficult; but you have to attend to the day to day, as well as the vision.”

Morgan First ’06 has started two businesses since her time spent in Emerson’s Entrepreneurial Studies program. Her successes have won her the Massachusetts Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Award and recognition as one of Inc. magazine’s “30 under 30: America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs.”